


This Living Hand

by shelleysprometheus



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A keats interpretation, Just before the fall, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 05:21:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14730734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shelleysprometheus/pseuds/shelleysprometheus
Summary: ‘This living hand, now warm and capable’ is an oddity amongst John Keats’s poetry – indeed, amongst Romantic poetry in general. Just eight lines long – or seven-and-a-half, even – it’s almost a fragment, written in blank verse, almost as if it’s a snippet of spoken dialogue from an unwritten play. (Fittingly, Keats wrote ‘This living hand’ on a manuscript page of one of his unfinished poems.) … And it is a case of when, not if – not just because we all die, but because Keats already knew, when he wrote the poem, that he would be dying sooner than most’.~ interestingliterature (https://interestingliterature.com/2016/01/07/a-short-analysis-of-keatss-this-living-hand/)





	This Living Hand

**Author's Note:**

> "This living hand, now warm and capable  
> Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold  
> And in the icy silence of the tomb,  
> So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights  
> That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood  
> So in my veins red life might stream again,  
> And thou be conscience-calm’d–see here it is–  
> I hold it towards you."  
> ~ John Keats

 

Sherlock knows.  
Sherlock knows what this will do to John.  
Sherlock knows what he will do to John.

John. Honest, brave, dependable John. Trusting, warm, passionate John. Moral, righteous, true John.

He's going to break his heart to save his life.

The fluorescent lights hum above him. The linoleum floor cold beneath him. The storage cupboards hard behind him. And he's cold. Colder than he should be sitting here on the laboratory floor in a wool suit. Colder than he should be in a room heated to 21° Celsius; the optimal temperature for maintaining Rattus norvegicus.

A lab rat.  
He is a lab rat.  
A lab rat able to choose the parameters of its own participation in the experiment.

The truth of it is, the rats still die. Whether they make it through the maze or not, whether they survive the electric shocks or not. The rats still die. They never tell you that. He never had to ask.

They die because it's safer for them than living a future in which their lives cannot be ensured. He will die for John because it's safer for John than if he lived. His death will ensure John’s future.

The ball, gripped in his hand, his capable hand, is warm. Pliable from being held so long. The ball will ensure his death. Will ensure that all John will know is an icy silence when he calls out his name, when he reaches for the red life in his veins.

Sherlock knows.  
Sherlock knows what this will do to John.  
Sherlock knows what he will do to John.  
Sherlock knows what he will do to himself.

Taking his life. Taking his life from John. John who gave him life. John who took a life to save his life. Now he will take all that away from John.

He will take away the thrill. He will take away the laughter. He will take away the light in John’s eyes. He will take away the life in his own eyes. He will hold his hand towards John. He will let John wish it was him.

A game.  
The game.  
The end game; his end.

He knew that. The moment at the pool. The chlorine stinging his eyes, his nose, burning his lungs. Burning the heart out of him. He saw that. In the way John offered his life for his. In the way John told him to run. He felt that. In the way that the foundations of his life shifted. In the way that he let them shift.

For John.  
Always for John.  
Only for John.

His days are already haunted. His dreams are already chilled. By what he knows he has already lost. A chance. The rare chance. The chance provided by a brave soldier, a trustworthy doctor, a loyal friend.

The chance for life.  
For love.  
With John.


End file.
